Boy wizard exposes kids 'to evil' - priest

Ireland's only hermit priest has warned of the dangers of Harry Potter and video games, which he says expose children to the "dark side".

Fr David Jones (64) also urged users of reiki to be careful, saying that by opening up shakras to positive energy, the negative spirits can also get in.

The Welshman, who has lived in Duleek, Co Meath, for more than 10 years, believes video games and even Harry Potter are part of a bigger agenda "to normalise the dark side".

"Evil that can come out of a screen is deliberate and pumped at people who are defenceless, such as children," he said.

Satanic

"Video games and screens are damaging children and hugely exposing them to evil.

"It's murky and affects every layer of society. Old Nick is not short of measures of getting in there.

"Little children watching Harry Potter are learning real spells. It's a topsy-turvy system to get them ready for something worse."

Fr Jones, who lived in monasteries in Italy and France and speaks eight languages, also claims that drug shipments in Latin America are presided over by Satanic rites to ensure maximum destruction.

"Big shipments of drugs are coming out with maximum demonic attachment because drug lords invite someone involved in Satanism to come out and perform a rite of cursing over each shipload to cause maximum harm, and therefore they are most lucrative to them," he said.

"Practices such as reiki also open doors to the dark side because they open the shakras and pores to other energies too," he said.

There is also a surge of Satanic power at Halloween, Fr Jones said.

"Human sacrifices happen each Halloween and people are conceived in Satanic rites - every time this happens, there's an increase in Satanic power," he added.

Although he claims to have been present at exorcisms, he is not trained to perform them, though he says each diocese has a priest that is.